Posted on 10/11/2002 11:06:06 AM PDT by Dog Gone
Tony Sanchez called Republican Gov. Rick Perry "a petty person" Thursday after Perry criticized Sanchez with words that sounded like a reference to the Democrat's height.
The exchange opened when reporters in Aldine asked Perry to respond to Sanchez's call for a criminal inquiry into the state's homeowners insurance crisis. Perry said Attorney General John Cornyn and Insurance Commissioner Jose Montemayor already are investigating.
"Again, Mr. Sanchez is a little late. He's short," Perry said, pausing as if he were at the end of a sentence. "He's short on ideas. He's short on solutions. He's long on criticism. That's about the only thing I can suggest that this fellow is long on."
Perry is 6 feet tall. Sanchez says he is 5-foot-6.
A reporter asked Perry if he was hurling a barb about Sanchez's height. Perry did not verbally respond. He pursed his lips and slightly shook his head.
Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan said Perry's comment was not intended as a reference to Sanchez's stature.
"We recognize first and foremost that height does not matter in the governor's race and there is nothing that Mr. Sanchez or anybody else can do about it," Sullivan said. "It appears his famous short temper is coming out in the waning days of this campaign."
But the remark clearly irritated Sanchez when he heard it later at his Houston campaign headquarters.
"These one-liners by Rick Perry aren't going to work," Sanchez said.
Sanchez said the insurance court of inquiry, which he proposed during Wednesday's Houston Chronicle/KHOU-TV gubernatorial debate, will show Perry had complicity in creating the homeowners insurance crisis.
"We are finally finding out what type of person he is, and in this court of inquiry, everything he's done is going to be exposed so the people of Texas clearly understand his involvement in this."
Sanchez called Perry's "short" comment an insult and said he was not bothered by it. But as he left the news conference, Sanchez brought it up with reporters again and called Perry "a petty person."
Sanchez said in Wednesday's debate that if he is elected governor, he will ask the state's attorney general to seek a court of inquiry to investigate lobbyists, insurance companies and political donations to state officeholders like Perry to see if any criminal activity led to the insurance crisis.
Many Texas homeowners have seen their policy premiums jump dramatically this year. The state's largest insurer, State Farm Insurance, is not writing policies for new customers. And the second-largest company, Farmers Insurance Group, facing a lawsuit by the state, has announced that it will pull out of the Texas homeowners insurance market over the next year.
The insurance companies claim that high losses due to mold claims have made it impossible to make a profit in Texas.
Sanchez described Farmers' threat to pull out of the state as a bluff.
"This is the second-largest market in the country. These companies are not going to leave Texas," Sanchez said. "Nobody should be fooled by that."
Perry spoke with reporters after delivering an anti-dropout, anti-drug program at Stovall Middle School in Aldine along with actor Chuck Norris and Texas Education Commissioner Felipe Alanis.
Perry said Texas voters will not buy Sanchez's insurance attacks when they realize the state already has sued Farmers, alleging unethical behavior.
"His statements that I listen to the insurance companies day in and day out is on pretty thin ice when you see what the state of Texas has done," Perry said.
Besides the lawsuit against Farmers, Perry said, the state is investigating the behavior of other homeowners insurance companies.
"I would consider that to be the type of leadership Texans want," Perry said.
Perry said he gets campaign contributions from a wide array of businesses and interests because of his nearly 18 years of public service as a legislator, agriculture commissioner, lieutenant governor and governor.
"I've got contributors on every side of every issue," Perry said. "So any decision that I make, there is going to be someone who contributed to my campaign who would rather it had gone the other way."
Perry said Sanchez started the negative campaigning.
"When you don't have any ideas, then your only alternative is to tear down, to attack," Perry said.
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